William Lowthian Green
| William Lowthian Green | |
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Portrait by Frederic Yates
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| Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
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In office 17 February 1874 – 5 December 1876 |
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| Monarch | Kalākaua |
| Preceded by | Charles Reed Bishop |
| Succeeded by | Henry A. P. Carter |
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In office 22 September 1880 – 20 May 1882 |
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| Preceded by | John Edward Bush |
| Succeeded by | Walter M. Gibson |
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In office 1 July 1887 – 28 December 1887 |
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| Preceded by | Walter M. Gibson |
| Succeeded by | Jonathan Austin |
| Minister of Finance | |
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In office 1 July 1887 – 22 July 1889 |
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| Preceded by | Paul P. Kanoa |
| Succeeded by | Samuel Mills Damon |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
13 September 1819 London |
| Died | 7 December 1890 (aged 53) Honolulu |
| Spouse(s) | Anna McKibben |
| Occupation | Businessman, diplomat |
William Lowthian Green (13 September 1819 – 7 December 1890) was an English adventurer and merchant who later became cabinet minister in the Kingdom of Hawaii. As an amateur geologist, he published a theory of the formation of the earth called the tetrahedral hypothesis.
William Lowthian Green was born in Doughty Street in London on 13 September 1819. His mother, Mary Childs, was from the Lothian region of Scotland. His father, Joseph Green, was apprenticed to an early scientific instrument maker, Jesse Ramsden, and then started a successful merchandise business in northern England. His father was a distant relation to Charles Green, who was astronomer on James Cook's voyage of 1768.
Green was educated privately in Liverpool and at King William's College on the Isle of Man. As a young man continuing his father's business he sailed to Buenos Aires in Argentina. He crossed the Pampas plain and then the Andes mountains on horseback. By 1844 he returned to Liverpool, but by that time his father had died.
His next venture was building one of the first screw steamships to reach South America from England. His small ship Flecha was not a business success, however. In 1849 he joined the California Gold Rush. By 1850 he had lost his fortune, and hired as a common sailor bound for China. He got as far as Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands where Robert Cheshire Janion hired him into the firm of Starkey, Janion & Company. Green became a partner and the company was known as Janion, Green & Company. By 1851 he founded and became first president of a social club for British residents he called "The Mess". It was later renamed The Pacific Club.
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